Brass wind instrument.



F. DURANT.

BRASS WIND INSTRUMENT.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE x0. 1911.

1,205,868. Patented Nov. 21, 1916.

Wrruassm INVENTOR FLIGIEN STATES ATENT QFFTQE.

FELICIEN DURANT, OF BRUSSELS, BELGIUM.

BRASS WIND INSTRUMENT.

Application filed June 10, 1911.

To all whom it /12 my c 21 cam Be it known that I, Fitmoinx Domini, subject of the King of the Belgians, residing at 1&9, Rue de la Victoire, Brussels, Belgium, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Brass Wind Instruments, of which the following is a specification.

Yi ind instruments with tone raising and tone lowering valves for the production of the chromatic scale have been disclosed and in one form three tone lowering and three tone raising valves are shown upon the drawing of such an instrument.

Now the subject matter of the present invention is such an instrument with three tone raising and three tone lowering valves, with special intervals so that by the first tone raising valve the instrument is raised by one tone above the open column of air, by the second tone raising valve in combination with the first the instrument raised by a further tone, and by the third in combination with the first and second by still another half tone. Such an instrument has the special advantage over others, for instance, an instrument with note changes by a halt, a whole, one and a hali. or by a halt, one or two tones, that the crooks of the tone raising valves are shorter.

The drawing represents one form of carryin out the invention.

The instrument shown is a horn in E, which, used without piston, has a theoretical length of 3939 mm., as every other horn in F. but it has the peculiarity that the slides a 7) e; (Z c f,- g h 1', corresponding respectively to the pistons 4,5 and nform part of this length of mm. and that these pistons are for the purpose of shortening the column oi air, being combined among themselves in different ways.

The pistons l, 2 and 3 are the ordinary descending pistons, lowering the column of air respectively by one tone, onehalt one. and two tones. The third piston might be descendant by one-and-onehalf tones as it actually in many instruments, but that arrangement causes the loss oi important combinations of corrections.

The pistons 4c, 5 and 6 are ascendant and combinable; the Alth raises the instrument by one tone by cutting out the slides a b c, the 6th piston raises the instrument by onehalf tone over the two preceding, that is to say that the simultaneous use of pistons 4,

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Nov. 21, 1916.

Serial No. 682,579.

5 and 6 cuts out the three slides a Z) 0, (Z c f, /L 2'- of the column of air. The instrument being in F, the dth piston gives the fundamental G; the pistons at and combined give the fundamental A, and pistons l, 5 and (5 combined give the fundamental B flat.

The instrument thus constructed is 0111 nitonic, that is it gives twelve distinct fundamentals, which follow each other uniformly, within an octave, in half tones. These twelve fundamentals are purely pro duced by the fingering in descending chro matic sequence given in the table below.

In case of necessity a. thirteenth position can be obtained by the use of the valves 1, 2, 3, but this gives an excessively high nominal A.

In the table below is also given a statement of the lengths of the horn, as they are shown by the various combinations of the fingering for a horn whose open column stands at F.

The changes in length due to each of the valves for an instrument in F are as follows :T0ne lowering valves: first, e83 mm. second. .235 mm. third, 102-l mm. Tone raising valves: fourth, 430 mm.; fifth, 383 min; sixth, 176 mm.

1 claim 1. A wind instrument having three tone raising valves, and three tone lowering valves and corresponding crooks controlled by said valves respectively, the first tone raising valve raising the pitch of the open column by one tone, the second and first tone raising valves combined raising the pitch two tones, and the third in combination with the first and second raising the pitch by still an additional half tone.

2. A wind instrument having three tone raising valves, and three tone lowering valves and corresponding crooks controlled 7 Copies of this patent may be obtained for one tone, one-half tone and two-tones respectively.

in presence of tWo itnesses.

FELIGIEN DURANT.

Witnesses: V V

'M. GERBEAU'LT,

G. ROOSEVELT PIIELAN.

Washington, D. G.

In testimony whereof I alfix iny'signatnre five cents each; by addressing the Commissioner of Patents. 7 

